Make Like A Banana
by Jaswinder
Summary: Bakura and Ryou were sick of being stuck in the same body. With Yami's help, they're split into two seperate people, but not without some strings attached... Bakura x Ryou, shonen-ai, hilarity.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Notes: Haha wow.

Okay guys, this is a really old fic I originally posted like _7 years ago._ Maybe some of you out there even remember it. People seemed to like it; I still find people quoting it here and there, which is cool.

I took it down a long time ago because people were getting freaky on me for not updating it and I was kind of embarrassed by it. Honestly, I probably won't update it ever, but I figured I'd at least clean it up a bit and repost it and maybe introduce it to a new generation of fans.

Enjoy!

* * *

Ryou wasn't feeling like himself. More than likely, this was due to the fact that at the moment, he was Bakura, not Ryou.

Well, okay, he was _always_ Bakura, since that is part of his name and all. But whether it was his first name or his last name really depended on who you asked, and even he wasn't sure anymore. Neither was his evil yami, who was also called Bakura, or Yami Bakura, or Yami no Bakura, or Yami no Ryou, or Timmy, it really didn't matter which, except for the last one, he was known to get rather agitated if you called him that, possibly because that's not even remotely close to any name he has, and all and all it's really not a good idea to agitate evil yamis.

Either way, it was Bakura, the evil one, who was in control, while Ryou sat in the back of their shared mind and twiddled his thumbs. There really wasn't much to do at all when you didn't have a body to use, and he was starting to get fidgety. There was an itch on their body's rear, and his yami wasn't doing anything about it, and he was the one who had the hands at the moment. Frustrated, Ryou stormed out of his soul room to go see what had paralyzed Bakura.

_What's the matter with you? Can't you feel that?_ He grumbled, before bothering to peek out of their shared eyes.

Laid out before them was the jewelry case of the department store Bakura had wandered into. And there was lots of pretty, glittering gold. Gold rings, gold necklaces, gold bracelets, white gold, gold-gold, silver, diamonds, sapphires, emeralds...

_Oh, great._ Ryou rolled his eyes, well, his mental eyes, not his real eyes. _Snap out of it! You're not going to steal anything, anyway, as long as I'm around!_

Bakura was eerily quiet. Ryou glanced out of the eyes again to see if anything had changed.

Saliva was starting to dribble onto the top of the display case.

Ryou made a face. _Good lord, stop drooling!_

An idea started to form in Ryou's head – well, his figurative head, anyway, since he was already inside his own head, and was starting to wish he was the only one in there. As secretly as possible, Ryou tried to slip back in control of their body, or at least one hand of their body. With his yami in a gold-induced trance, this was far easier than it should have been.

With the hand back under his control, he first attended to the maddening itch, no longer caring if he was in public or not. And then he promptly slapped himself across the face.

"Gyewah?!" He heard himself abruptly wonder aloud as his yami's daze was broken, "Dammit, vessel! What was that for?"

The hand pointed down to the drool splattered across the glass case, before it rested akimbo on their hip.

"Oh, a little spit never hurt anything," Bakura muttered, as he used the hand he did have control of to wipe his lips off with his sleeve. The other hand seemed surprised, and tried to bat the arm away from the body's face.

"I'll use my sleeves for a napkin if I want to!" Bakura growled loudly, inspiring those that weren't already looking at him oddly to start immediately. He whirled around to glare at each of them, raising his lips and showing everyone his pointy teeth. His audience quickly coughed and went about with their business. After all, they knew it was a bad idea to agitate evil yamis, or at least boys who were apparently quite schizophrenic, and salivated over women's jewelry before doing battle with their own hands.

_Wonderful, Bakura. Make everyone think I'm absolutely insane,_ Ryou grumbled inside Bakura's head, _You don't have to reply to me out LOUD, you know!_

"Oh, shut up! I don't have to reply to you at all," Bakura huffed, out loud, of course, "And give me back that hand!"

_Not until you're on the other side of the store and as far away from the jewelry department as possible._

"What? I'm not going to _steal_ anything," Bakura snorted, leaning back against the glass counter. He looked upwards innocently while he sneakily walked the fingers of one hand towards a display. Despite Bakura's masterful stealth, though, Ryou noticed, and the walking hand was quickly smacked down and pinned against the counter. It started to scramble wildly, but the Ryou-controlled hand had it in a strangle-hold around the wrist.

"It's just one necklace!" Bakura almost whined as he tried to pull his hand free from, well, his other hand, with all his might.

_You've got enough necklaces to embarrass the tackiest of girls!_

"And you'd know all about what someone of a female persuasion would think, huh, vessel?" Bakura snickered, then grunted as he tried to yank one hand free from his other hand, putting his back into it and bracing his legs, "Being one... yourself and all!"

_I am not a girl!_

"Could've fooled me with that hair – or your eyelashes -- or your attitude -- or your _wimpiness..._"

_Wimpiness?! I'll show you wimpy!_

And with that, the hand that had a hold of Bakura's wrist managed to jerk him to the side, causing him to stumble and go crashing into a promotional display stand filled with DVDs of the latest Barney movie. Once the little Ryou-headed _bas_ stopped fluttering angrily around his head, Bakura shoved a large, purple, cardboard dinosaur off of himself and emerged from the pile of plastic clam cases.

"That's IT! I'm sick of this!" he snarled, climbing to his feet and brushing himself off. The other store patrons gave him a wide berth as he stormed towards the doors of the department store, proclaiming loudly, "I want a body of my OWN, without any annoying hikaris attached!"

_You think I like having a kleptomaniac yami?!_ Ryou huffed at Bakura from the back of his head, _I really got the short end of the yami stick. Yugi gets a leather-clad pharaoh, and Marik gets a sexy super-saiyan look-alike, what do I get? A tomb robber with bangs that look like big pointed bunny ears!_

Bakura was about to counter Ryou's attack with the infallible argument that, no, his hair did NOT look like bunny ears; it FAR more closely resembled demonic horns, when he paused and blinked.

"...Did you just call Marik's yami sexy?"

_...no... you're hearing things._

There was a long stretch of uncomfortable silence.

Ryou finally coughed. _So... where are we going?_

"I'm going to find that stupid pharaoh! He's the only one that can give me a new body!"

_Why on Earth would he help you?_

"...because... um... I'll hold you hostage if he doesn't!"

_It's kind of silly to take hostage of someone who wants the same thing you do._

"...Oh, be quiet."

----

Footnotes: A _ba_ is an Egyptian thing. They believed the souls of the dead could fly between their tombs and the afterlife, as weird birds with human heads - these were bas. And curses on tombs often threatened that the ba of whomever the tomb belonged to would come carry away anyone that trespassed and, I dunno, peck their eyes out or poop on their car or something.

Also WOW this is old. Do you guys even remember Barney?


	2. Chapter 2

The spirit and the person he lived in found Yami sitting on a bench in the park, drumming his fingers against the wood. Bakura had been running, and he came to a screeching halt as soon as he saw the spiky pink --

"Fuchsia!" said the grumpy pharaoh spirit.

...fuchsia and black hair on the horizon. He clutched his knees and gasped for air, cursing his hikari's out of shape body before the other Egyptian spirit. He missed being buff. And swarthy. And having a cool scar. Yami just quirked an eyebrow at him, since one of his mortal enemies was apparently bowing to him. Or possibly having an asthma attack. He liked 'bowing' better.

"Pharaoh!" Bakura snapped and looked up, wiping sweat off his brow, "You will separate my spirit from Ryou immediately!"

"Huhwah?" Yami blinked, "You want to be sent to the Shadow Realm? Well, alright, that can be--"

"No, I want my OWN body, nincompoop!"

Yami folded his arms incredulously at Bakura. How the spirit managed to fold his arms at all with all those chains and straps and tight leather, Bakura didn't know. Maybe it was part of the Puzzle's power. And if he had that Puzzle, he too could wear more leather than a cow and still be able to move freely and comfortably! Without the danger of chafing! With power like that, he would be unstoppable...

Bakura realized Yami had started talking, and sighed, putting his megalomania to the side for the moment.

"Sure, I'm always willing to give my one of my arch nemesises-es-es-es..." Scowling, he gave up on the word and continued, "...an unfair advantage and eliminate his only weakness." Yami snorted sarcastically. He must have taken up watching sitcoms, since he certainly didn't pick up any cynical wit from Yugi. "Forget it."

"But you _must_! I can't stand having such a wimp for a hikari!"

Suddenly, Bakura's bangs fell. "And I can't stand having a yami who can be controlled by shiny objects, whether they're the Millennium Rod or not."

The bangs popped up again, "He's small and whiny and weak, and so nice it's sickening!"

Down they went. "He's rude, uncouth, stubborn and annoying!"

"He looks like a girl!"

"He's a sick twisted freak!"

"I can't stand his accent!"

"I can't stand his taste for bloody meat!"

"He's a whimpering little shrimp of a mortal!"

"He's a conniving thief of a spirit!"

Yami and in the back of their mind, Yugi, watched with amusement as the bangs on the white-haired boy's head flopped up and down like a flip-flopping fish. For now, they were up, and Bakura glared at him malevolently.

"Well?! Are you going to just sit there?!"

"Oh, don't mind me. Please, continue." Yami waved his hands. Bakura growled like a feral imp.

"I figured you would resist! So in order to persuade you, I've held your precious friend Ryou hostage!"

Yami looked right, and then left. He glanced up at Bakura, then down at the thief's feet, say that five times fast.

"...what exactly are you keeping him hostage with?"

"Erm..." Bakura blinked, "Why don't I let him tell you himself! Ha ha HA!" And with that, Bakura's evil bunny-horn bangs flopped back down, and he was Ryou again.

"Oh no. Help me Yugi. I can do nothing against him," Ryou half-heartedly pleaded in a monotonous tone while attending to yet another itch on his bum.

"Come on, you don't sound nearly angsty enough," Yami scrutinized Ryou's performance.

"Oh, but I am. Behold, I cut myself." Ryou held up his wrist tiredly, to reveal a red smudge near the base of his palm. Yami narrowed his eyes, leaning forward to examine it.

"...that's just ketchup, Ryou."

Ryou glanced down at his wrist and yawned. "So it is... so it is."

_Stupid hikari! Put some emotion into it!_

"You want emotion?" Ryou grumbled, "Fine." He took a deep breath, and...

"YAMI!" The British boy suddenly wailed, dropping to his knees and clutching the collar of Yami's coat-turned-cape desperately, looking up at him with eyes so big and so brown they reminded Yami of triple-layer chocolate cakes, coated in milk chocolate icing, smothered in hot fudge syrup, with chocolate sprinkles. Maybe some ice-cream. It probably had cherries on it, too.

Mmm, cake.

"You must... help me!" Ryou gasped for air, before grasping at his chest and bowing his head as though in agony, "He is... unstoppable!" The white-haired boy set a wrist against his forehead, before uttering to the heavens, "If you don't, the WHOLE ENTIRE WORLD will be in UTMOST DANGER!"

"Good heavens!" Yami leapt to his feet and abandoned all thoughts of cake, his cape-shirt billowing dramatically behind him, "Utmost danger! I must save the world!" He pulled out his deck and started shuffling intently.

Ryou blinked up at Yami, still on his knees. "...what're you doing?"

"How can I save the world if my deck isn't cut as THROUGHLY as it can be cut? I have to be in tip-top dueling condition!"

"This... this won't involve Duel Monsters."

Yami stared at him blankly.

"I mean... You don't have to duel this time. Just separate Bakura and I into new bodies. You can do that, right?"

"How can you possibly save the world without DUELING?"

"Just forget that!" Ryou snapped irritably, indicating it was _that_ time of the month, even though last time Bakura checked, his host wasn't female. But he was a hikari, and as far as the tomb-robber was concerned, that was close enough.

"I have to defeat someone in a game of _some_ kind before I can use my powers," Yami huffed, setting his shoulders and looking very disappointed that he wasn't going to get to have an epic duel atop a building or a blimp or in a castle or some other remote, dramatic locale.

"Fine then, we'll play rock paper scissors!"

"I accept your challenge!" Yami boomed, well, as well as he could boom when he was only barely reaching the five foot tall mark if you didn't include his hair, "But you have no hope of winning, for only the good of heart shall prevail in his most epic and ancient of games!"

"I'm still Ryou, remember?" Ryou reminded him with some exasperation. He wished his yami hadn't left him with... well... Yami.

"Then it will be heart-wrenching to be forced into a duel against one of my good friends, but I shall eagerly trounce you anyway!"

"Trounce away," Ryou muttered, rolling his eyes. They counted to three, and held out their hands...

Yami's hand was a fist.

Ryou's hand was flat.

"Well, look at that," Ryou blinked dumbly. "Shall we go again?"

Silence.

"...Yami?"

The corner of Yami's eye was twitching. He hadn't moved.

Ryou stood up, since he was still on his knees, and their postures made the scene look dangerously as though he were about to ask Yami for his hand in marriage. "Earth to the pharaoh?"

"But... I'm... king of... games... how... impossible..." Yami murmured to himself, before he shook his head. "AHA! I nearly fell for your clever trap, but I'm on to you! Obviously, you have cheated, and only those who believe in the heart of the ca..." He glanced at his hand, "heart of... the... hand can truly win! You forget the obscure rule that I've conveniently made up that says that if I hold my pinky out like this and play Rock, it becomes not a rock, but a Sharp Peak, and if paper tries to cover it, it gets impaled!"

"Very well," Ryou sighed and folded his arms as the Pharaoh's coping mechanism kicked in, "Now can you separate us?"

"INDEED!" Yami intoned, before spinning around and raising his hand dramatically above his head, before dramatically bringing it down and dramatically pointing at Ryou. Yami imagined colored speed lines whirling around him as he did this, but Ryou only saw a whirling Yami.

"PENALTY GAME! SPIRITUAL DIVIDE!"

Ryou felt a rather odd, tingly sensation come over him, and Bakura did too, for that matter.

"Rather amazing that we're in the middle of the park, and no one seems to notice what's going on, isn't it?" Ryou mused as some sort of ancient magic ripped the two souls in his body apart and yanked one out.

There was no reply for some time, before he heard someone at his side mutter something about stupid mortals.

Ryou blinked and glanced to his side. There sat Bakura, wearing the same, yet somehow more dramatic clothing as he was. And of course, he was taller than Ryou, and his hair and eyelashes looked more evil, but otherwise, they were pretty much identical.

Bakura stared down at himself, before poking himself in the chest. "I have a body..." he murmured, before leaping to his feet and happily announcing to people passing them on the sidewalk, "I have a BODY!" He did a victory dance in his new body to demonstrate.

Ryou and Yami were slightly disturbed by the sight of the dancing thief, and Ryou was about to politely thank Yami and head on his way, when he noticed that he and Bakura were standing a large yin-yang pattern. That certainly hadn't been there before.

"Uh... what's that?" He pointed at the ground. Bakura was too busy dancing to notice.

"The _penalty_ part of the game, of course," Yami smirked, "I suggest you make sure he doesn't dance out of the circle. Because if you try and escape, you'll be sucked into the SHADOW REALM!"

Hearing Yami shout the name of that other dimension made Bakura halt in the middle of his Snoopy dance, and he turned on his heels to glare at the pharaoh. "What was that?!!"

Yami pointed to the ethereal yin-yang circling them with a roughly five foot radius. "You only said you wanted separate bodies, and I've granted your wish, but you said nothing about separate lives!"

"We're still stuck together?!!" Ryou looked defeated, and Bakura's face screwed up into an indiscernible expression - something between seething rage and unfathomable anguish.

"Quite stuck together, for if either of you try and step outside the circle, you'll be sucked into the SHADOW REALM!" Yami repeated.

"What's to stop me from pushing Ryou out?" Bakura wondered, eyeing the smaller white-haired boy thoughtfully.

"The fact that if one of you goes, you _both_ go."

"What?!" They both yelled - well, Ryou whined more than yelled.

"This is all your fault!" Bakura snarled, turning on Ryou.

"How is it my fault?! This entire thing was your idea!"

"You should have been more specific!"

"Uh, guys..." Yami tried to interject, but now the Bakurae could actually glare and wave fists at each other while they were fighting, and they were both exercising this new freedom to the fullest extent,

"Guys!"

"What?!" They both turned to glare at him. And if looks could kill, well... it was a good thing he was already dead.

He pointed to the ground. They looked.

The circle had shrunk to about three feet wide. Both white-haired boys let out a yelp and tried to get as close as possible to the center of the circle, backing up against each other. As soon as they touched, though, Bakura had to try and shove Ryou away to get the best spot, and Ryou didn't take very kindly to being pushed.

"The more you fight and argue, the smaller the circle will become. However!" Yami raised his index finger, "Should you cooperate and get along, the circle will grow larger and perhaps even disappear!"

Both Bakurae looked rather disgruntled at the prospect of having to get along with the other one. "We couldn't get along when we had the SAME body, how do you expect us to do it now?" Ryou sighed. He had a feeling they would end up in the Shadow Realm by that afternoon.

"Because the circle is not the only change!" Yami stood as tall as he could, smirking proudly, "In order to separate you, I had to make you both into _complete_ people. So you now each have your own light and dark side!"

Bakura glanced over at Ryou suspiciously, "You mean you gave him another yami?!" He snarled at Yami, almost - dare we say - jealously? Ryou just blinked.

"No," Yami raised his eyebrows at Bakura, "You each have a dark and light side that is actually a part of you, not a split personality, like normal people."

"You mean..." Bakura almost whimpered, "...a... conscience?"

"Yep."

"_NOOOOOOOO!_" Bakura dropped to his knees and clutched his head, before pounding the sidewalk, "And I spent so long getting rid of my conscience! OH CRUEL FATE!"

Ryou looked over at his wailing former yami, and... snickered.

The sound reached Bakura's ears, and he looked up in realization. "But if I get a conscious, then doesn't Ryou get..."

"A... well, unpleasant streak? Yep."

"What? I don't have a mean bone in my body," Ryou huffed and folded his arms.

"I didn't say _mean_, now did I?" Yami said mysteriously, "Anyway. You two go have fun. I'm going to go play bingo at the retirement home - they say I make them feel young, what with being 5000 years old and all." And Yami wandered off.

Ryou and Bakura were silent for a while, though Bakura hit the sidewalk a few more times, before it dawned on him that now he had a body, he had to feel _pain_ again.

"Well! This is a fine mess we've gotten ourselves into," Ryou muttered, while Bakura cradled his smashed hand and winced. "At least I don't have worry about finding out I stole something when you were in control!"

"And I don't have to worry about you ruining my evil plots," Bakura snorted, standing up, "I'm just fine with this arrangement. I'll just _ignore_ you and everything will be fine."

"Fine!"

"Fine!"

They refused to look at each other, and started walking. Luckily, the magic circle followed them along the ground, and slowly, it started to fill out back to its former size, since they were being relatively amicable, for, well, being Ryou and Bakura.

However, Ryou was so intent on not looking at Bakura, he also failed to notice the fire hydrant, until he had gone tumbling over it, well over the edge of the circle --

He felt himself get yanked back quickly, and he ended up leaning back against someone's chest as he watched his life flash before his eyes. But he realized he wasn't going to fall and get sucked into the realm of ultimate evil, and he let out his breath in a long sigh, sagging his shoulders.

"Be careful!" Bakura snapped irritably, right above his head, "Knowing what a klutz you are, you'll send us into the Shadow Realm before we even get home." There was a pause, and he added, "And get off me."

Ryou realized he was still leant up against the taller boy and quickly stood upright, coughing and brushing himself off. They continued walking in silence.

"Um, yami?" Ryou addressed quietly after a while.

"I'm not your yami anymore."

"Whatever. Um..." Ryou sighed, "...thanks."

He winced. Why did he thank him? He expected some retort about how Bakura was only looking out for himself, but the other boy - not a spirit any longer - was silent. Ryou blinked, and followed him quietly.

The circle grew a little bigger.


	3. Chapter 3

Soon enough, they were home, sitting on the couch. Bakura was rather disgruntled. He had had all sorts of evil plans he had wanted to carry out as soon as he got his own body, and every single one was ruined. He couldn't even take control of Ryou and 'drive' him somewhere.

Ryou seemed to be faring better. He was quite content to lean back against the couch, meditating on the blessed inner peace his mind had without a tomb-robber living in it. But the fact that said tomb-robber was now sitting beside him - and was actually flesh and blood instead of an illusion - was enough to keep him on his guard.

It was so nice and quiet in his head, though, he could just close his eyes and...

He was about to fall asleep when he felt someone trying to rifle through his pocket as discreetly as possible.

"Hey!" Ryou snapped awake and Bakura quickly withdrew his hand, scowling and muttering at being caught. "For Pete's sake, I don't even have anything to steal."

"Figures," Bakura grumbled, looking at all he had been able to procure from the pocket - a sizable piece of lint. "How can I go without stealing something?! You don't have anything good, and this stupid circle..."

"I don't know, _normal_ people manage just fine," Ryou snorted.

Bakura just sat there, stewing, while Ryou threatened to nod off again - when a loud growl from the taller boy woke him up.

"What was that for?" Ryou glared over at him, but Bakura looked just as confused as he did. Curiously, the former spirit poked at his stomach. The prodding elicited another growl, and Bakura nearly leapt out of his seat, quickly withdrawing his hand as though it might be bit. Ryou raised an eyebrow.

"What's this strange... empty... burbley feeling?" Bakura wondered out loud, cautiously tapping his abdomen again.

"Oh, come on. You must have been in control at least once when my body got hungry," Ryou folded his arms, "I really don't see how anyone can forget what being hungry feels like."

"I ignored all those stupid signals your body sent!" Bakura was still studying his lower half intently, "Hunger, huh... well, it _has_ been 3000 years since I've eaten." He glanced over at the kitchen, and then back at his former hikari, who was starting to fall asleep again. "Vessel!"

"Snhuhwah?" Ryou blinked his eyes open.

"Take me to the kitchen."

"I'm not your vessel!"

"Well, what do you want me to call you?!"

"Try, I don't know, my _name_?"

"Feh! I have a _name_ for you. Girlyboy, take me to the kitchen!"

"Take yourself, bunny-ears."

"They're NOT bunny-ears! They're HORNS OF EVIL!"

Ryou was about to retort, when he noticed the circle had started glowing angrily and quickly retracting. He yelped and threw himself as far away from the edge as he could. This ended up being the other end of the couch.

Bakura blinked dumbly as Ryou flung himself into his lap. "What do you think you're --" He then noticed the quickly shrinking circle, and both Bakurae clung to each other out of sheer terror.

The circle stopped short of Bakura's sneakers. He and Ryou stared down at it with wide eyes, but they realized it wasn't going to shrink any more. And then they realized the questionable position they had taken up.

"Well... this is awkward," Bakura muttered.

"Don't you dare drop me!" Ryou threatened, trying to fold up into as small a space as he could while keeping a death-grip on Bakura's neck. "Or move in any way at all."

Bakura sat there helplessly, burdened with an armful of Ryou. His legs were starting to get cramped, and the fact Ryou was sitting on them and cutting off his circulation wasn't helping. He was about to _politely_ ask Ryou to move, when he realized he was being strangled, too, and all that came out was a weird croaking gasp.

Ryou, who had taken up watching the circle intently, blinked at the strange sound coming out of his former yami. "What was that?"

Bakura croaked again, turning a little blue in the face. And his mind chose this particular moment in time to come upon a revelation; he was quite mortal now, and fully capable of dying. But if he tried to move either of his hands out from beneath Ryou, the hikari would probably kill him on purpose. He tried croaking louder.

"What is _wrong_ with you? ...oh." Sheepishly, Ryou noticed he was crushing his ex-yami's windpipe. He coughed and loosened his grip just enough for him to breath, which he did gratefully, gasping like a fish out of water. After his lungs weren't screaming for oxygen at him, he narrowed his eyes down at Ryou and gave him the frowning of a lifetime.

Ryou just set a finger on his chin innocently, looking up at Bakura with almost freakishly huge brown eyes, framed by his snow-white bangs. "Sorry, yami..." He said in his sweetest tone, with his cute, faint posh accent...

Bakura almost whimpered. He could feel his teeth rotting. Never before had he been suggested to such sheer... _kawaiiness._ He was seriously afraid for his solid state, since that kid could melt anything with those eyes. "Stop that!"

"Stop what?" Ryou tilted his head to one side, causing his bangs to fall over his face. He knew he was laying it on thick, but... well, his former yami might just decide to toss him out of the circle anyway if he didn't, consequences be damned.

"That!" Bakura sputtered, squirming. His legs were falling asleep.

Ryou's newly acquired evil side enjoyed seeing Bakura flustered, wondering just how much he could get away with. He let out a cute little yawn, murmuring and snuggling into his warm new seat to get comfortable, "I'm not doing anything..."

Bakura made a funny whining-snorting sound - and then his stomach growled loudly again, causing both of them to blink and look down. The thief frowned. He really wished his ex-hikari was a giant steak, instead of an ex-hikari. Hmm... hikari... hickory... hikari styled steak?

"_Bakura!_" Ryou suddenly shrieked, trying to scramble away from his 'twin' while still remaining in his lap and the circle.

"Wha?"

"You're drooling again! Ugh, that's disgusting! I don't even want to know what you're thinking about!"

"Hikari steak... er... hickory."

Ryou gave him a thoroughly disturbed look. He had known his yami had a taste for blood, but cannibalism?

"Why don't... we... order a pizza or something," Ryou spoke slowly as he tried to placate the tomb robber, who was still staring at him thoughtfully and probably imagining a giant t-bone where his head was.

Of course, Ryou seated in such a questionable place as he was, there were entirely _other_ reasons Bakura could be staring at him like that, but he quickly shoved _those_ thoughts back down into whatever dark recess they had sprung from. Great - his new built-in dark side was not only evil, but dirty-minded as well.

"We can ask for every kind of meat they have on it!" He stammered, tapping his fingers together and really hoping he wasn't blushing, or if he was going red, Bakura was just imagining raw steak in place of his face. "L-look, the phone's right over here on the end table, I'll just reach over, and... uh..."

The cell phone was at the far end of the table. Tentatively, he reached out for it, half afraid that his hand would disappear into the Shadow Realm. His position made things rather difficult, though, and as he groped blindly for the phone, he felt it slip off the table and clatter to the floor. Ryou bit back a curse. This was like some bad, messed-up horror movie.

"Okay, we can still get it, we'll just have to move really carefully, and..." Ryou trailed off. Bakura's silence was worrying. "...uh, Bakura?"

He glanced up. The thief was grinning at him strangely and muttered something about a pretty steak, obviously delirious with hunger. Ryou really hoped it was hunger, at least. Unable to take it anymore, he whimpered and covered his head with his arms, "Don't eat me!"

Bakura blinked stupidly and snapped out of his trance. "Huh? Eat you?"

Ryou nodded made another whimpery sound, trying to curl into a tiny ball. Bakura was confused. Normally, he would have prided himself on making his hikari terrified, but now it was worrisome. Why?

He glanced down at the floor and his eyes widened. Oh. _That_ was why. It had started to expand before, but with Ryou scared of him, it was closing in on his sneakers once again.

"Ryou, stop! You're making the circle shrink!" He tried shaking the smaller boy, but the ex-hikari just whined.

"Ugh, you wuss!" Bakura snorted, "I'm not going to do anything! Crazy..."

Ryou blinked and lifted his head, looking at Bakura with those huge brown eyes again. "P-promise?"

"Yes! Now get up so we can get that phone."

Ryou tentatively complied, carefully extracting himself from Bakura's lap and looking around to see where the edge of the circle was. The thief stood up as well, and they carefully edged toward the phone, waiting until the circle had slowly regained a decent diameter before Ryou leaned down and snatched the phone off the ground. He dialed the number of the pizza place, and before long, the Bakurae were sitting on the couch again, waiting for the food to arrive.

Bakura had managed to find the remote wedged beneath some of the couch cushions, and was happily channel surfing, lingering on the channel for a moment, laughing at whatever was going on, before flipping to the next one. Ryou just sat on his end of the couch and shook his head. Yami did that too - Ryou and Yugi had been ready to chalk it up to being a yami habit when they discovered that Joey and Tristan were avid surfers as well. Tea said it was a guy thing, and Ryou and Yugi took offense at that, since they _were_ guys, dammit, they just weren't very... well... yeah.

Bakura came to a stop when they found a documentary about Egypt. "Man, that place sure looks worse than it did when I left it."

"Centuries of harsh desert conditions, occupation, and re-occupation will do that to a civilization," Ryou sighed and stared at the TV. Bakura started laughing again, even though the documentary was just talking about the mummification process.

"They took the brain out through the nose? That's rich!" The tomb-robber snickered.

Ryou stared at him in bewilderment. "You didn't _know_ that?"

"How would I? I never mummified anyone," Bakura snorted, then made a face as they started talking about canopic jars, as though disturbed by an unpleasant memory.

Ryou just shook his head when he realized that he might just know more about Egypt than this Egyptian spirit, when the doorbell rang. Suddenly, the documentary held no interest to Bakura. Being a firm believer in the idea that the quickest way to any destination was a straight line, he was trying to clamber over the back of the couch, his frenzied hunger and the promise of greasy cheese making him forget about the realm of eternal darkness and creepy stuff that awaited him just beyond the boundaries of the magic circle.

Luckily, Ryou was not so single minded, and managed to restrain his former yami by hanging onto his ankles. "No! You'll probably maul the poor delivery guy! Let me handle this."

Reluctantly, Bakura restrained himself and stiffly followed Ryou to the door, not liking being bossed around by a short little hikari at _all_. But what could he do? Any action against Ryou would make the circle shrink, and they couldn't get any pizza if he was in the Shadow Realm. He hadn't gotten to be the King of Thieves by not knowing when to swallow his pride and let the other guy think he was in control, nosiree.

When the door opened, the delivery guy was greeted with the disturbing sight of two nearly identical white-haired boys staring at him, one looking exasperated, the other looking as though he'd like to tear someone apart. He was glad it was the exasperated one that gave him the money and took the pizza, allowing Delivery Guy to get out of there without coming to bodily harm.

Once Ryou had closed the door, Bakura swiftly stole the pizza out of his hands, hefting the warm cardboard box up victoriously, just out of Ryou's reach. "Hah! Mine!"

"I paid for it!"

"So? I'm bigger than you," Bakura pointed out the obvious, turning his back to Ryou and opening the box. "Besides, I haven't eaten in thousands of years! You just ate this morning."

"If we don't share, the circle will shrink," Ryou retorted curtly, glaring up at the ex-yami.

"Yeah... but... feh." Bakura could find no counter-argument, and grumbled. "Fine. You can have a _small_ piece."

"I should get at least half of the pizza!"

"A quarter!"

"A half and a quarter."

"Fine then, that sounds reason -- HEY!"

Bakura bristled at his sneaky little vessel, while Ryou just smiled innocently. They sat on the couch and placed the box between themselves, and were soon too caught up in downing slices of greasy pizza to concern themselves with fighting.

"Mmf!" Bakura said while holding up two slices in each hand, sauce decorating his face and shirt, "I forgot how much I loved eating!"

"Great," Ryou muttered. Knowing his luck, his yami would end up being one of those teenage boys with insanely high metabolisms that would eat him out of house and home. How was he going to explain to his father that he suddenly needed extra money for twice as many groceries? 'Oh, you know those ancient Egyptian spirits given flesh, their stomachs are bottomless pits'?

After only a few pieces, Ryou was full, and he left the rest of the box to his porcine yami-turned-roommate. Bakura somehow managed to get more sauce than could possibly have been on the pizza on himself, the couch, the TV, the ceiling - Ryou didn't know _how_ he did it, since he was stuffing his face too quickly for the naked eye to follow.

Bakura was about to snatch up the very last piece in the box and cram it down his gullet when it seemed to click in his head that Ryou had only had a whopping two slices. He hesitated for a moment - Ryou didn't seem to want any more, but if he was a selfish pig, the circle might start closing in again. Politeness was _not_ something that was in his nature. Was he losing his touch, or was his infernal new conscience acting up already?

"Um," the thief started, with his mouth still full of the last piece he had eaten, "you... uh... sure you don't want any more?" he asked hesitantly, cringing.

Ryou stared over at him in disbelief, blinking stupidly. "What did you say? I must be going insane, since I could have sworn I heard you being almost polite."

"I asked if you were sure you didn't want the last slice, but if you're going to be smart about it, forget it," Bakura grumbled, sounding almost... _hurt_? No, he was probably just sulking.

Ryou frowned, "Well... um... why don't we split it?"

Bakura perked at the suggestion, and quickly tore the slice in half, since he enjoyed tearing things almost as much as eating them. He handed Ryou half, and they finished in silence - Ryou noted that Bakura didn't even complain when he ended up with the smaller half.

The ex-hikari glanced over at his ex-yami, who had gone back to laughing at the television and spraying bits of half-chewed pizza as he did so.

_Maybe this won't be quite as bad as I thought._

---

**Foot notes:** Canopic jars were covered jars stored in the tomb of a mummified person - they contained the various major organs of the deceased, all except the heart, which was left in the body to be weighed by Osiris. The Egyptians believed that the organs of a person could be used against them once they were dead, so they put them in these jars to protect them.

Needless to say, any novice tomb-robber that happened upon some of these jars in a fresh tomb and reached in hoping to find shinies would be in for a nasty surprise.


End file.
